KAIJU CONQUEST - A dream come true?
Since Star Wars came out in 1977, I have always loved science fiction and fantasy. Like millions of others, it opened my eyes to new beginnings.
In 1979, at the age of 15, I bought and played my first tactical board game. It was Squad Leader. I loved the game mechanics and the concept of recreating events from World War II in the scenarios given. Shortly thereafter, my first science fiction board game was Starship Troopers, which was based on the book by Robert Heinlein. The idea of powered armour troopers appealed to me right away.
In the early 80’s I started creating ideas of my own for tactical, strategic and RPG games, all based on this one universe. One of my best friends had helped with it by creating drawings of vehicles and equipment that we could use in the games. I even created an alien language. Not perfect linguistically, but passable. It was great doing all that stuff back then, but it was not getting me anywhere. We did it just for fun.
About 12 years ago now, I created a science fiction strategy board game of galactic war. There were 8 races involved, each with a background. The map involved about 30 or more worlds throughout the galaxy. I took that game to a local game manufacturer and was given a tour of the facility, showed them the game and was told what it would cost to get the initial product. I knew it would be expensive at the time, and I had no idea where to go with it after that. So I put it on the sidelines.
Last year, in summer of 2013, a great science fiction movie, called Pacific Rim, came out about giant mecha fighting giant monsters. Since then I have seen that movie over 25 times. I was waiting for someone to create a decent tactical or strategic board game based on that movie, but no luck. All that came out was a simple card game and a standalone miniatures game, both of which I have. So in January 2014 (which is the time when I usually have my brainstorms), I decided to create a game based on that movie.
I was able to complete the first draft of the game, complete with game board, playing cards and components within two weeks. As I made modifications to it over the next few weeks, I had my friends and family members playtest it for me. They enjoyed the idea and lots of input was provided for improvement.
About 6 weeks after starting the Pacific Rim strategy board game, I decided to contact Warner Brothers to get licensing rights to use the material from the movie for the game. All I got back eventually was that they are busy and could take a few weeks for them to return my request.
My wife convinced me to take my own route with the game, rather than possibly give up rights to it to a big time movie company. So I hemmed and hawed that day, and looked over the material I had created 30 years ago. It was then I had an epiphany. I had all the info right here in order to make my own strategic board game.
So with the exception of my job, and some community work I do, I spent a lot of late nights, followed by early mornings for the next two weeks constantly working on modifying the game to suit my concept of an epic science fiction strategy board game. The end result of that is Kaiju Conquest. A strategic board game of alien invasion and combat between mecha and monsters.
Although I will be posting more detailed events on this page, I also have a link to the Kaiju Conquest Facebook page to look at previous and current postings.
Since Star Wars came out in 1977, I have always loved science fiction and fantasy. Like millions of others, it opened my eyes to new beginnings.
In 1979, at the age of 15, I bought and played my first tactical board game. It was Squad Leader. I loved the game mechanics and the concept of recreating events from World War II in the scenarios given. Shortly thereafter, my first science fiction board game was Starship Troopers, which was based on the book by Robert Heinlein. The idea of powered armour troopers appealed to me right away.
In the early 80’s I started creating ideas of my own for tactical, strategic and RPG games, all based on this one universe. One of my best friends had helped with it by creating drawings of vehicles and equipment that we could use in the games. I even created an alien language. Not perfect linguistically, but passable. It was great doing all that stuff back then, but it was not getting me anywhere. We did it just for fun.
About 12 years ago now, I created a science fiction strategy board game of galactic war. There were 8 races involved, each with a background. The map involved about 30 or more worlds throughout the galaxy. I took that game to a local game manufacturer and was given a tour of the facility, showed them the game and was told what it would cost to get the initial product. I knew it would be expensive at the time, and I had no idea where to go with it after that. So I put it on the sidelines.
Last year, in summer of 2013, a great science fiction movie, called Pacific Rim, came out about giant mecha fighting giant monsters. Since then I have seen that movie over 25 times. I was waiting for someone to create a decent tactical or strategic board game based on that movie, but no luck. All that came out was a simple card game and a standalone miniatures game, both of which I have. So in January 2014 (which is the time when I usually have my brainstorms), I decided to create a game based on that movie.
I was able to complete the first draft of the game, complete with game board, playing cards and components within two weeks. As I made modifications to it over the next few weeks, I had my friends and family members playtest it for me. They enjoyed the idea and lots of input was provided for improvement.
About 6 weeks after starting the Pacific Rim strategy board game, I decided to contact Warner Brothers to get licensing rights to use the material from the movie for the game. All I got back eventually was that they are busy and could take a few weeks for them to return my request.
My wife convinced me to take my own route with the game, rather than possibly give up rights to it to a big time movie company. So I hemmed and hawed that day, and looked over the material I had created 30 years ago. It was then I had an epiphany. I had all the info right here in order to make my own strategic board game.
So with the exception of my job, and some community work I do, I spent a lot of late nights, followed by early mornings for the next two weeks constantly working on modifying the game to suit my concept of an epic science fiction strategy board game. The end result of that is Kaiju Conquest. A strategic board game of alien invasion and combat between mecha and monsters.
Although I will be posting more detailed events on this page, I also have a link to the Kaiju Conquest Facebook page to look at previous and current postings.
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